This invention relates to dental instruments for removing calculus and plaque from teeth but which minimizes any significant removal of tooth material.
There are known in the art a variety of hand manipulable dental instruments for removing bacteria and calculus present on the root cementum portion of a tooth. Such instruments typically have sharply ground cutting edges which, during scraping, tend to remove good tooth material as well. In addition, these instruments require great skill on the part of the user in order to produce good results without also creating relatively deep scars in the dentine which can rapidly fill with undesirable microbes.
The present invention relates to a new design for dental instruments which substantially eliminates irregular removal of good tooth material while permitting effective removal of plaque and calculus.
More specifically, the present invention provides dental instruments which have axially spaced working surfaces separated by a recess or groove. The working surfaces and recess or groove surfaces combine to form substantially right right-angled cutting edges. The working surfaces themselves are substantially flat, forming load relieving surfaces which take up the pressure of the tool, and which prevent excess scraping action which would otherwise remove portions of the root cementum. Several exemplary embodiments of dental instruments incorporating this basic structure are described herein, in conjunction with the detailed description which follows.